Couples with obesity may take longer to achieve pregnancy, NIH study suggests

Friday, February 3, 2017

Couples in which both partners are obese may take from 55 to 59 percent longer to achieve pregnancy, compared to their normal weight counterparts, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health. The findings appear online in Human Reproduction.

“A lot of studies on fertility and body composition have focused on the female partner, but our findings underscore the importance of including both partners,” said Rajeshwari Sundaram, Ph.D., a senior investigator in the Division of Intramural Population Health Research at NIH’s Eunice Kennedy ShriverNational Institute of Child Health and Human Development. “Our results also indicate that fertility specialists may want to consider couples’ body compositions when counseling patients.”